Special to Wesson News
A permanent history museum that tells the story of Wesson -- a dream of locals since the town’s Sesquicentennial celebration in 2014 when a temporary museum whetted appetites for an ongoing one that honored life here, may soon become a reality under the auspices of Friends of the Library (FOL) with volunteer assistance and funding provided by Home Depot.
Work is scheduled to start on January 20 to begin creating the museum space at a building adjacent the Wesson municipal park on Beech Street that a local Boy Scouts of America (BSA) troop used for its activities. The Town of Wesson turned the building over to FOL for the museum after it fell into disuse with BSA inactivity in town.
The “Keep History Alive in Wesson” Team Depot Volunteer Project will utilize ten Home Depot volunteers and five nonprofit volunteers from the community for initial remodeling of the building. Funded by $9,500 from Home Depot Foundation in the form of e-gift cards, they will acquire and lay new flooring, install a backdoor access ramp for disabled persons and purchase a dehumidifier. In the future, other funds may be required for insured contractors to do electrical, roofing, plumbing and HVAC work, among other things
The Brookhaven Home Depot store is the project sponsoring facility, and Elishia Howard is the sponsoring captain.
In applying for Home Depot assistance, FOL members Marilyn Britt, Librarian at Wesson Public Library, and Dr. Steven Liverman noted “the history for City of Wesson is stored in several areas that are not the best environment for safety” and that FOL is seeking to create one location that will allow for safety and continued preservation of the historical items.
It was in 2014 as part of the Wesson Sesquicentennial celebration that Dixie Thornton started encouraging locals to take the town’s history out of their closets, unpack boxes and donate historical items for public display in the temporary museum she created for the occasion.
From its opening in April, 2014, until July, more than 1000 persons, including children, groups from Wesson Attendance Center and out-of-towners who savored history, visited the temporary museum in which Thornton strived for “authenticity” in exhibits that featured clothing, artifacts and document from out of history rather than reproductions. The exhibit highlights included:
Clothing made from the cotton and woolen fabrics produced at the textile mills which operated in Wesson from the 1860s into the 1890s and spurred development of the town
Late 19th Century garments worn by Rilla Oliver Rae, daughter of Captain William Oliver -- one of the early mill owners
Artifacts from the Wesson mills, including machine parts, keys to buildings, and corporate stamps
A photo of Wesson mill employees in front of one of the factory buildings in which they worked
Cotton bales -- raw material for the mill operations
A 19th Century baby buggy
School jackets that reflect the progression of Wesson schools and development of Copiah-Lincoln Community College (Co-Lin)
A World War II military overcoat
The bell from the old Wesson grammar school
Pictures and memorabilia from the pre-NASCAR racing career of Wesson resident Ikey Jerome, including his driving suit
The temporary museum occupied two buildings on Spring Street off Highway 51 across from City Hall, one loaned by its owner, Mayor Alton Shaw, as a private citizen, to the Wesson Chamber of Commerce that housed a series of partitioned exhibits organized to tell distinct stories about different aspects of the life of Wesson -- the mills era, evolution of Co-Lin, churches and religion, commerce, etc. -- through artifacts, photos, and documents; and an adjacent structure owned by the Town of Wesson next to the public library that featured displays focusing on daily life of townspeople -- a late 19th Century kitchen and bedroom, a garden with a manual plow, home spinning wheel, quilts, the printing press that produced the Wesson Enterprise weekly newspaper in the 1950s and 1960s, among others.
"The people of Wesson demonstrated that they wanted the unique history of their town preserved and shared by removing items from storage and contributing them to a museum that displays them in a meaningful way that truly tells the story of the town," Thornton said. "The temporary museum was a tourist attraction that conserved the past in the present for people who appreciate the importance of history, promoted business development by building traffic for merchants, and boosted sales taxes that help pay for town services."
Since the temporary museum closed, officials have been searching for ways to bring a permanent one to Wesson. In creating the temporary museum, Thornton worked with Wesson residents steeped in the town’s history -- Sonya Cowen, Carolyn Graham, and Mike Hux -- to identify authentic documents, photos, and artifacts and solicit them from donors and lenders. Mark Hamilton, former minster of music at Calvary Baptist Church in Silver Creek, worked closely with Thornton, picking up contributions, transporting them to the museum site, and building the museum exhibits. More than 30 persons contributed as donors and lenders.
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